


Man, it don't add up

by belmanoir



Category: Fandom RPF, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: F/M, Mary Sue your friends meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-09
Updated: 2012-04-09
Packaged: 2017-11-03 08:48:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/379510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belmanoir/pseuds/belmanoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kirk thinks his new yeoman is an unalloyed annoyance until an away mission forces him to confront his true feelings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Man, it don't add up

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mrs_laugh_track](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_laugh_track/gifts).



> The command crew in party hats picture can be viewed [here](http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w181/Mrs_Laughtrack/hatparty.jpg).

Starfleet was punishing him. They were angry because he'd gone through ten yeomans in the last six months. It wasn't Jim's fault they kept falling in love with him!

At least this one didn't seem to be in any danger of that. She barely paid attention to him for thirty seconds at a time.

"Yeoman Goldberg--," he began in clear tones of command, turning around to get her to stop fiddling with the dials on her clipboard or chewing on her earrings or whatever she was doing now. His jaw dropped. "Yeoman Goldberg-Jewison!" he barked. Or at least, he meant to bark, but his voice had risen an octave or two in shock. "Get out of my chair!"

She bounded to her feet, dropping her clipboard. "I'm really sorry, Captain," she said, looking mortified. "It's just--it's so _spinny_."

He shut his eyes. "Yes, it is, Yeoman. It is also mine. Now please come over here so I can introduce you to the rest of the command crew."

She scuttled over.

"This is Mr. Spock, our science officer."

Spock nodded, then blinked. "Yeoman," he said in tones of deep misgiving.

Jim looked. Yeoman Goldberg-Jewison practically had stars in her eyes as she gazed at Spock. Apparently there was _something_ that could hold her attention. "Nice to meet you," she said. "I read a bunch of your papers on space cephalopods. They were _awesome_."

Spock's eyebrows rose. "Thank you, Yeoman."

She smiled. She...had a nice smile, big and warm and bright, and she filled out her uniform nicely--

"What are you eating?" Spock asked curiously.

She put her fingers in her mouth. Jim blinked, beginning to wonder if Scotty had turned the heat up on the bridge by accident, but then she pulled out a wad of gum, a couple of credit tokens, and a screw. "Huh," she said.

###

"What would you like for lunch?" Jim asked. "You just tell the replicator what you'd like, and it'll give it to you. Here, try it."

She shrank back. "Um. I don't know. What's good?"

"It will give you _anything_ , Yeoman," he said impatiently.

"I, um. Hmm. I'm sorry, I'm really bad with this kind of decision."

"How does a chicken sandwich sound?" he asked, clinging to his temper by a thread.

She brightened. "I never say no to a sandwich."

"Two chicken sandwiches and two coffees," he told the replicator.

They took a seat. Jim reminded himself that it was her first day. She was probably nervous, and it was up to him as a senior officer to draw her out and make her feel comfortable. "I notice you wear glasses. Is there a reason you don't just take Retinax X? I'm sure Dr. McCoy--"

"I'm allergic to Retinax X," she said around a mouthful of chicken. "Besides, I kind of like them."

He studied her round face, framed with short, spiky brown hair. He had always kind of liked glasses himself. They had nostalgic charm, and they gave a face shape. Spock would look good in glasses, he'd always thought.

"Besides, my life's not exactly dangerous, right?" she said. "They're not going to get broken. Unless the ship explodes, in which case I won't care about my glasses. Well, or unless I sit on them."

"Does that happen often?"

"Not _often_ ," she hedged. "I mean, I'm usually wearing them."

###

There had never been so much _giggling_ on his bridge before. Laughter, certainly; sometimes he or Bones told a joke or Mr. Spock said something witty, but that was different. This was _giggling_.

"What are you looking at?" he demanded, seizing Yeoman Goldberg-Jewison's clipboard away from Sulu and Chekov. It wasn't difficult. Sulu was giggling too hard to keep his grip.

It was a picture of him and Spock and Bones with...party hats.

"What is this?" he asked, bewildered.

"Um," Goldberg-Jewison said. "I just--you guys seem to have a lot of fun, and I like party hats, and--"

"It's the look on the Captain's face that makes it," Chekov chortled.

###

The next time, he actually had a video channel open with an unimaginably powerful alien bent on destruction. "One moment, your Highness," he said. "Lieutenant Uhura!" The screen winked off.

" _Yeoman_ ," he said in tones of pure death. "If you cannot control yourself, then kindly leave the bridge."

She looked indignant. "I couldn't help it!" she said. "It was Mr. Spock! He was sassing them with his face!"

Jim looked at Spock, who raised a puzzled eyebrow back at him. 

"Yes!" she said. "Just like that! I mean he was all _RMPH RMPH RMPH I WILL DESTROY YOU_ and Mr. Spock was just standing behind you giving him this _look_ like--"

Jim rubbed at his eyes. What had he done to deserve this?

###

Their next mission was escorting some paper pusher to his new post, along with his overexcited pet bulldog. Jim hated him on sight, and he hated him even more when the man's first words were "Yes, Jasper, I know, it's not what we're used to. But we'll be back on land soon."

"Omigod _puppy!_ " Goldberg-Jewison said behind him, in a low, happy, affectionate voice he'd never heard before. "Oh, lookit you!" She got down on her knees and let the dog slobber all over her. It gave Jim a nice view of her ass. "Look at your _face!_ What a _good_ dog. Aw, puppy."

He eyed the dog. It didn't look that great to him--a face that looked like it had melted a little, huge paws, and louder than a sonic grenade.

"Will you steal me that dog?" she asked Jim as they walked out, loud enough that Mr. Desk Job could hear her, and the look of horror on the man's face compensated for a _lot_.

###

"Do I _have_ to go on an away mission?" she asked. "I'm not fighty."

"There isn't going to be any fighting," he told her for the tenth time. "I need your background in marine biology, that's all." But something about the sight of her in that red uniform as she stepped onto her transporter pad gave him an unsettled feeling, somewhere in his chest. 

###

There wasn't any fighting, but there _was_ a plague. "Tiny dolphins? Bones, you've got to be kidding me."

"I'm a doctor, not a goddamn comedian," Bones snapped. "I know it sounds incredible, Jim, but I'm looking at your blood under my microscope and there are tiny dolphins swimming around in there."

"Do you have a cure?"

Bones gave him one of those open, sorry looks of his. "Not yet," he said gently. "Spock and I are working on it. I wish I had my lab! But we can't beam up, the danger of contagion is too great."

"How long have I got, Bones?"

"You've got at least a day. We'll find something before then. Yeoman Goldberg-Jewison?"

"Yes?" 

Jim had forgotten she was there, she'd been so quiet. Quiet and small and steady at his shoulder.

"He can't fall asleep, do you understand? If he does, the dolphins could reach his brain. Talk to him, shake him, stand on your head if you have to, but he doesn't sleep."

"Yes, sir," she said.

"Good. Now go sit in the other room and don't get in our way."

The door shut behind them with finality. Yeoman Goldberg-Jewison looked pale and tense. "Don't be afraid," he told her. "I'll be all right."

Her chin came up. "I know that," she said. "Don't start comforting _me_ , _you're_ the one who's sick."

He nodded ruefully. "And I've got the mother of all headaches." He was feeling dizzy, too, and suddenly exhausted. He steadied himself with a hand on the back of a chair.

Her eyes widened. "Oh, puppy," she said. "Come here." She sat on the floor, heedless of the view this gave him up her skirt, and patted her lap.

He was too tired to resist. He sat between her legs, and she wrapped her arms around him and let him put his head on her shoulder. "Don't let me sleep," he said.

"Oh, making it impossible for people to sleep is one of my top skills," she said. "Um. I didn't mean that to be as dirty as it sounded." She scratched at the edges of his hair like he was really a puppy. He could actually feel his headache getting better. "So what do you want to talk about?"

One of her top skills. She was always saying that. _Putting party hats on people is one of my top skills._ _Being ridiculous about dogs is one of my top skills._ He'd looked through her file, and she'd never specialized heavily in anything, marine biology background notwithstanding. What _were_ her top skills? "Why did you join Starfleet?"

"I like boots," she said, resting her chin on the top of his head.

"Yeoman," he said warningly.

"Well, Starfleet is pretty much _great_ , right? I mean, we're in _space_! Space, fighting bad guys in _space!_ " she hummed. "You know what the Mounties are, right?"

"The Canadian police force?" he asked, startled at the change in topic.

"Yeah. Well you know their wild west was really different than ours, because they sent out the Mounties _first_. I mean okay we got cowboys, and I _love_ cowboys, but a lot of really fucked-up shit happened. And it was all totally different in Canada, because they already had people out there keeping an eye on things when all the assholes showed up. It wouldn't be cool if the assholes got to space before us. A lot of these planets couldn't protect themselves against Earth technology. So we're like space Mounties, in boots."

"No hats, though," he said regretfully.

"That is too bad," she agreed.

###

He was still awake next morning, engaged in refuting some well-reasoned but erroneous points Goldberg-Jewison was making about the tradition of Christmas celebrations for the crew, when McCoy came in and found them sprawled out on the floor, his head on her stomach and her fingers still in his hair. "I've got it, Jim!"

He was on his feet in a second, the room spinning around him a little. "You've got it? The cure?"

There was a crash behind him. He turned to see Goldberg-Jewison in a still, crumpled heap, the chair she'd tried to grab for balance lying next to her. His heart leapt into his throat. Bones was already past him, though, taking her pulse. "Is she--" he got out.

"I don't know," Bones said grimly. "Dammit, Jim, didn't you notice she'd got it? Didn't she complain of a headache? Dizziness?"

He shook his head. She hadn't complained at all. 

"She is much smaller than you, Captain," Spock said from the doorway. "The infection has progressed much more quickly."

Bones nodded. "I don't know if I can save her."

"That answer isn't acceptable," Jim said, throat tight. 

Bones's face softened. "She's important to you, isn't she?"

He leaned against the wall. "Yes." He passed a hand over his face. "I didn't realize how much."

"Four to beam up," Spock said into his communicator. He hauled Goldberg-Jewison up into his arms. "If you will bring along the yeoman's glasses, Captain. She will want them when she wakes up."

_When._ He put the broken frames in his pocket and held onto that.

###

"Oh, this is no problem, Captain," Scotty said. "I just have to replace this little wee hingie and they'll be good as new."

"Do it, Mr. Scott," he said.

"Aye, Captain." Scotty shot him a concerned glance. "And how is the lass?"

Jim drummed his fingers on the table and didn't answer.

###

"I can't see!" he heard when he got to sickbay. "You don't understand, I need them. This is really freaky, okay?"

He almost ran into the door because it slid open too damn slow.

"Yeoman! You're alive!"

She blinked myopically at him and smiled. "So are you." She sounded happy about that. "Have you got my glasses?"

Oh. "Yes, they're right here." He pressed them into her hand. She slid them on and hopped off the bed, and suddenly all seemed right with the world. Nurse Chapel slipped quietly into the other room.

"I can't believe we had tiny dolphins in our blood," she said. "My brothers are going to laugh at me forever. I mean that's just comedy gold--"

He seized her upper arms. "Hush, Yeoman," he said gently, and smiled. "That's an order." 

She squished her face up. "That's _really_ gross." His heart sank. "Also, unprofessional and kind of creepy. Why am I so into it?"

"You're--into it?"

She shrugged and grinned at him. "Yes. It's a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma tied with a bow made out of--"

He kissed her, and she laughed against his mouth and let him.


End file.
